Defiance by C.J. Redwine Review

"While the other girls in the walled city-state of Baalboden learn to sew and dance, Rachel Adams learns to track and hunt. While they bend like reeds to the will of their male Protectors, she uses hers for sparring practice.

When Rachel's father fails to return from a courier mission and is declared dead, the city's brutal Commander assigns Rachel a new Protector: her father's apprentice, Logan—the boy she declared her love to and who turned her down two years before. Left with nothing but fierce belief in her father's survival, Rachel decides to escape and find him herself.

As Rachel and Logan battle their way through the Wasteland, stalked by a monster that can't be killed and an army of assassins out for blood, they discover romance, heartbreak, and a truth that will incite a war decades in the making."

Defiance isn't a book I've seen before in different names and a different cover. In other words, Defiance is unique.

Defiance is told from two POVs (Rachel and Logan, who else? This reminds me of Legend, which is June and Day). Defiance is fire-filled ride with deception, innocents, murders, deaths, assassinations, cruelty, truths, lies, monsters, and pawns (yes, now I'm going into chess).

I must tell my opinions on chemistry. Out of everything I've remembered about the book, chemistry (between Logan and Rachel) is perhaps the last thing I remember. (In this book.) It isn't unforgettable. It isn't hot, like hot, hot. (Divergent is.) It is just a steady romance that is threatening to happen, and isn't very surprising at all. In fact, I was bored to death. To death!

What now? Oh, yeah the plot. Well, let me tell you this, the plot is much more interesting than the chemistry. (Thank the skies!) Really, I usually don't care about the chemistry unless the author promises it to the readers. (Yeah, look how well that ended up). Defiance is a well written book, so no complaints on the writing.

The ending is a killer! I love how good everything seems to be in the end, but then everything goes downhill quickly. One lesson from the ending: Always enjoy while you still can.

Characters:

Rachel is filled with revenge and defiance to authority. It seems that it is quite obvious to nearly everyone that Rachel is one angry ticking bomb, just waiting to be engaged and explode. (Heh, red hair for revenge, fire, anger, hatred, and defiance.) She's fed up with people telling her that her father is dead. She is sick of people, like Logan (or so it seems), who doesn't want to help her find her beloved missing father. Everything builds inside of her until all she sees in revenge, murder, anger, her own sense of justice, defiance, and love, of all things. (Logan and her father and her grandfather. Who else is there to love? Mother is dead. And everyone else in her family is likely too.)

Logan is different. He's more controlled on the outside, yet still has the same potential of being engaged like a bomb like Rachel. He is somewhat wiser, tactical, smarter, and more resourceful than Rachel. Best of all, he's a tech geek.

Rating: Three out of Five